WWE Wrestlemania PPC Case Study | Honcho

CHALLENGE

WWE WrestleMania is one of the biggest sports entertainment events in the world. This global event is broadcast in over 135 countries, and in the UK on Sky Sports box office.

Pretty successful without digital marketing you might think? Well, the challenge once you peak is to maintain that position. As an annual event, we needed to influence the public mentality of “just another event”. We wanted to get the fans engaged in the online conversation, raise awareness and maximise Sky’s Box Office tickets, and drive traffic to the website. Our primary focus was the UK, as well as most of Europe, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand.

Honchō worked with the WWE team initially for the WrestleMania 31 event. Our success later brought us repeat projects to build on our results with WWE.

STRATEGY

First, we wrestled the big research task and identified storyline awareness and engagement leads to higher buys. This could only be executed by using ALL digital channels, and with careful planning.

We translated and adapted all video and display assets for use across our target countries. This was for all devices, and across all social channels, YouTube, display (premium and programmatic) and PPC channels.

Weighting was biased towards innovative and engaging social advertising campaigns to ensure the vibrant WWE social universe was engaged in the storyline leading up to the event. We wanted to drum up a buzz for customers before they got to the stadium so we took a comprehensive PPC approach. Our precise time-sensitive posts across the devices and channels were key to reinforce the local call-to-actions with TV and radio advertising schedules.

A key tactic to our success was re-marketing. Working with WWE year after year meant that to improve, we needed to tap into all customers; past, present, and prospective. We utilised the data of those who were fans of the social pages and had purchased merchandise, knowing that we were targeted a fully engaged and relevant audience.

WrestleMania31’s messaging was deemed to be ‘everywhere’ by WWE fans online, and was one of our most successful years, far exceeding Sky and WWE’s projected sales.

STRATEGY

First, we wrestled the big research task and identified storyline awareness and engagement leads to higher buys. This could only be executed by using ALL digital channels, and with careful planning.

WrestleMania31’s messaging was deemed to be ‘everywhere’ by WWE fans online, and was one of our most successful years, far exceeding Sky and WWE’s projected sales.